Wolf Pack, page 12
“Bring me more to make this a better case,” Dulcie continued. “Either the forensics, or a witness, or something bombproof. Then I’ll go to her. All we’ve got at this point are some traps left in the woods, an old man walking around legally with a shotgun, and a smashed-up drone. Oh, and a white SUV with muddy license plates from Cheyenne.”
Joe said, “When you put it that way, it does sound a little lame.”
She said, “Even you have to admit that right now you’re probably more curious about what’s behind that big security gate than just bobcat traps and drones.”
“That’s not entirely true. Guys who break game laws don’t stop there. I think of it as a Wyoming version of the broken-windows method of policing.”
Dulcie considered what Joe had said. “That’s an interesting take.”
“And it’s legitimate. There’s something wrong with a guy who deliberately harms wildlife. It’s an indicator of a disturbed mind-set. It’s kind of like finding out that a kid enjoys torturing animals—you aren’t that shocked when he becomes a school shooter later on.”
“That’s a bit much,” she said cautiously.
“Maybe. Maybe not. A man who leaves steel-jawed traps unattended has a cruel streak. And a guy who chases deer for kicks with a toy airplane until they die from stress is capable of much worse. If someone deliberately hurts innocent wildlife, it isn’t much of a leap to think he’d do the same to human beings.”
She nodded while she thought it over. “The fact that Bill Hill is the father of the boy dating Lucy has absolutely nothing to do with this, I know.”
“Maybe a little,” Joe confessed.
“Marybeth shares your concern,” Dulcie said. “It drives her crazy that she knows so little about Justin’s family or where his dad comes from. This thing about the traps is just something that makes the whole thing even odder.”
“True.”
“Come back with more, Joe.”
“I will.”
“In the meantime, I’ll start writing up the search warrant request for Judge Hartsook-Carver. That way, we can just plug in whatever additional evidence you get and we’ll be good to go.”
“Thank you.”
As he pushed his chair back to stand up, she mused, “I may just put in a call to the FAA.”
He nodded for her to continue.
“You said drone pilots are supposed to register their drones and get some kind of license, right?”
“Right.”
“Maybe they’ll be interested in talking to Hill as well,” she said.
“I doubt it. This is pretty small potatoes.”
“Maybe not to Judge Hartsook-Carver,” Dulcie said while arching her eyebrows. “If this case brings in the feds, it might be much higher profile. It might interest the media, if you know what I mean.”
Joe said, “That’s kind of brilliant. Bringing in the feds would normally be the last thing I’d want to do. But I see your point. Judge Hartsook-Carver might really like the exposure.”
“That’s why I make the big bucks,” Dulcie said. “I’ll make a couple of calls and let you know what they say.”
He clamped on his hat and held up the trap. “Do you want to keep this in evidence?”
“Not until you bring the other one.” She laughed.
As he opened the door, she said, “Big news about Nate and Liv, isn’t it?”
“Yup.”
“I bet you didn’t see that one coming.”
“Nope.”
“Neither did I. I guess Liv is taming him after all.”
“Maybe.”
“Nice talking with you, Joe,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand.
He left the building as quickly as he could after he gathered up his possessions from the security area. Joe knew that Dulcie had once been attracted to Nate because she’d asked him several times about the falconer. Marybeth had hinted to Joe that maybe he could introduce them when Nate was unattached, and he surmised the idea had come from her close friend.
No doubt Dulcie was speculating that if Joe had followed through with the introduction when he’d been asked about it, the story might have turned out differently.
* * *
—
WHEN KATELYN DIDN’T pick up, Joe left a message filling her in on his meetings and asking her to call him back.
* * *
—
SINCE HE WAS in town, he stopped for lunch at the Burg-O-Pardner and sat at the counter and ordered a cheeseburger and a side of Rocky Mountain oysters. Behind him at a large table, the usual lunch crowd of present and former city fathers ate and gossiped and critiqued stories in that morning’s Roundup. They seemed to agree that the high school sports coverage was decent, but that the editorial advocating for a pause in the new grizzly bear hunting season was stupid and revealed the true liberal bias of the new editor.
When he was through eating, Joe spun on his stool and asked the men if any of them had heard of Bill Hill or Tom Kinnison. They looked back at him with blank faces. Then the former sanitation plant manager spoke up and asked Joe if Hill lived outside of Winchester.
“He does,” Joe said.
“I thought I remembered that name. He called about garbage pickup.”
Which made the other men chuckle. There was no curbside trash pickup in Saddlestring, much less in rural Twelve Sleep County.
“He was kind of rude when I told him we couldn’t offer it,” the man said. “You know how those types are sometimes. They move out here to be in the middle of nowhere, but they expect the same big-city services they left.”
After a beat, Joe asked, “Is that all?”
The man nodded. “I just talked with him that one time and he left a bad taste in my mouth. That might not be fair to him, but that’s what happened.”
* * *
—
JOE WAS OPENING his pickup door outside the Burg-O-Pardner when the fry cook came out of the restaurant and chased him down.
“Mr. Joe?”
Norman Fast Horse was a Northern Arapaho who was also on the business council for the Wind River Indian Reservation. Joe had met him several times because Norman had a son in April’s class at high school. Norman always called him Mr. Joe.
“How are you doing, Norman?”
“Decently.”
Joe waited. He knew Fast Horse was extremely deliberate in conversation and it didn’t help to rush him.
“I heard what you asked the fellows,” he said.
“Yes?”
“I don’t know either of them guys.”
“Okay.”
“But I talked to Hill’s father a couple of times. He comes in early for breakfast before the fellows show up.”
Joe recalled the old man outside the compound with his shotgun.
“He’s a strange bird,” Fast Horse said. “I call him Vito, like in Vito Corleone. That’s because he reminds me of the old man in the movie. He mumbles like that, and he sure doesn’t act like he’s from around here. He looks more out of place than the rest of you illegal aliens.”
Joe smiled. He admired how Fast Horse had kind of slipped in that “you illegal aliens” shot. He’d often seen Fast Horse wearing a T-shirt with a vintage photo of four armed natives and the lines HOMELAND SECURITY—FIGHTING TERRORISM SINCE 1492 printed beneath it.
“I met old man Hill,” Joe said. “I got that same impression.”
Fast Horse said, “He asked me what Rocky Mountain oysters were and I told him. When he found out it was bull testicles, I thought his eyes were going to bug out. I laughed so hard I thought I was gonna cry. So every time he comes in I say, ‘How about some scrambled eggs and oysters, Mr. Vito?’”
“What’s his reaction?”
“Ah, he just kind of smiles. Then he does this,” Fast Horse said as he formed a pistol out of the fingers of his right hand and pointed it at Joe’s chest.
“Bang,” Fast Horse said.
* * *
—
JOE WAS THINKING about that Bang when he checked his phone as he drove out of town toward the breaklands to check more traps. Katelyn had yet to return his call, but there was a Call me text from Marybeth.
“I’ve been going through the databases all day,” she said with obvious agitation. She recounted that she’d run both names through NIBRS (National Incident-Based Reporting System), NCIC (National Crime Information Center), ViCAP (Violent Criminal Apprehension Program), and RMIN—the Rocky Mountain Information Network that included Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming.
“Nothing,” she said. “Nada. These guys are as clean as fresh snow.”
“Huh,” Joe said.
“Then I did a couple of conventional searches. Finally, something about Bill Hill came up.”
Joe listened carefully.
“He received an award from the Newark Chamber of Commerce for businessman of the year. There wasn’t much else except his name. He was also the guest of honor for the New Jersey State Policemen’s Benevolent Association. Good, right?”
“I guess.”
“But that’s not the interesting thing. Both of the hits were within the last two years. There is absolutely nothing before that.”
Joe asked, “How can that be?”
“You tell me,” she said. “Do you realize how impossible it is to not come up in a Google search? Everybody’s on there for something. And if this guy ran a corporation important enough to win a big award and he’s so charitable that the state police honor him . . . I don’t know. It’s baffling. It’s like he just showed up on earth for the first time to receive two awards. Then apparently he picked up lock, stock, and barrel and moved to Wyoming.”
“Nothing about his business at all?”
“Not that I can find. I’ll keep looking, but this is really strange.”
“What about Kinnison?”
“He doesn’t exist on the Internet,” she said. “He’s a ghost.”
Joe shook his head. It kept getting stranger.
“There is one thing,” Marybeth said. “I just got a text from Lucy, and her play practice got canceled after school. She asked me if I could pick up Justin and her.”
“I’ll do it,” Joe said. “I assume Justin needs a ride to his house?”
“Apparently.”
“I’m all over that.”
“I thought you would be,” she said. “But be careful. You’re not going out there to snoop around.”
“Of course not,” he said with a grin.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LUCY WAS WARY when she opened the passenger door and looked in at Joe behind the wheel.
“Mom couldn’t make it?”
“Nope. You’re stuck with me.”
“No problem, Dad. Do you mind giving Justin a ride home?”
“Not at all.”
She turned to the back seat and grimaced. The floor and bench seat were covered with gear bags, winter clothing, an M4 semiauto rifle chambered in .308, a necropsy kit, and other day-to-day detritus. Daisy was excited to see her and she did a little dance on the front seat.
“You’ll have to sit up front with me,” Joe said.
“Obviously.” She sighed.
She shinnied in first and Justin climbed in behind her and thanked Joe for the lift. Daisy took a position on the floorboard facing them with her head wedged between Lucy’s and Justin’s thighs.
“Kind of crowded in here,” Joe said. “On to Winchester.”
* * *
—
WHILE LUCY AND JUSTIN talked about mutual friends and their last year in high school in a comfortable rapport, Joe observed the boy with furtive side-eyes as he drove. Justin was tall, good-looking, and easygoing. He was quick to smile, and he treated Lucy with respect and with not just a little awe.
“Don’t you usually get a ride home?” Joe asked Justin. He’d heard about the large SUV that delivered Justin and picked him up.
“Yeah, well, I do,” Justin said. “I was going to get picked up after play practice, but it got canceled, so I’d have to wait around for a couple of hours with nothing to do. Lucy said it was okay to come along with you.”
“It’s okay,” Joe said. “I don’t mind at all. Who usually picks you up? Your dad?”
“Sometimes,” the boy said with a barely discernible eye roll. “Usually, it’s one of the guys.”
“One of the guys?” Joe asked.
He felt a nudge on his rib cage from Lucy, although she continued to look straight ahead.
“Yeah,” Justin said. “One of my dad’s friends.”
Before Joe could ask about Bill Hill’s friends, Lucy jabbed him sharper with her elbow.
“I met your grandfather the other day,” Joe said. “He seems like an interesting character.”
Another sharp jab.
“That’s one way to put it,” Justin said with what Joe read as disapproval.
“You know, Mr. Pickett,” the boy said, “I’ve always wanted to ride along in one of these trucks. What’s that thing do?” he asked, pointing toward a radio mounted under the dashboard.
“It’s a commercial scanner. Lots of guys out in the woods talk to each other on walkie-talkies,” Joe said. “Sometimes they say things to each other that they probably shouldn’t. The scanner will pick up that back and forth.”
Justin leaned forward, obviously interested. Lucy sat back between her boyfriend and her dad and closed her eyes as if sleeping.
“Like what?” Justin asked Joe.
“Like, ‘I think that game warden is gone and he didn’t see a thing. Drag that deer out of the bushes and I’ll meet you on the road.’”
“Has that ever happened?” Justin asked.
“Yup.”
“That’s so cool.”
For the next ten minutes, Justin asked questions and Joe gave him a personal tour of the inside of the cab. He’d spent so much time in this new truck and a multitude of old—and mostly destroyed—Game and Fish pickups over the years that he’d forgotten how interesting it might be for a first-timer to observe all of the gear, electronics, and tools of his trade.
Lucy turned her head back and forth from Joe to Justin as if watching a tennis match.
Justin was especially interested in the toggle switch that turned on the “sneak lights” mounted under the front bumper. The muted lights allowed Joe to drive ahead in the dark without alerting others who might be on the lookout for him.
He twisted around and his eyes got big when he saw the M4.
“What’s that for?”
“I’m guessing you don’t see a lot of rifles,” Joe said.
Justin started to respond, but seemed to catch himself. Then he said, “Well, I don’t see a lot of hunting rifles.”
Joe waited for more that didn’t come.
Lucy said, “Tell him about the rifle, Dad.” Obviously, she’d sensed the tension.
Joe said, “Unfortunately, we get called out quite a lot to dispatch big-game animals that get hit on the highway. I use that to put the animal out of its misery so it won’t suffer.”
“What do you do with the meat?”
So they were on to a different topic. But Joe had noted Justin’s earlier hesitation.
Joe said, “We take it to the homeless shelter in Saddlestring or Winchester, usually. I also know a couple of social workers who know about families down on their luck.”
“That’s really great,” Justin said. “But isn’t wild meat kind of, you know, crappy?”
“Not at all,” Joe said.
“He’s right,” Lucy interjected. “Elk steaks are a big treat around our house.”
“I thought you were a vegetarian?” Justin asked her.
“I usually am,” she said.
Joe said, “Justin, a Wyoming vegetarian is someone who only eats meat once a day.”
Justin laughed at that, then said, “My mom was a vegetarian. I don’t think that helped her when she got sick, but I’m not sure.”
Joe was momentarily flummoxed. He realized he’d never heard a mention of Justin’s mother from either Lucy or Marybeth. Or maybe they had talked about her and he hadn’t paid any attention.
Lucy sensed her dad’s confusion and said, “Justin’s mom died a few years ago before they moved.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Joe said.
“Yeah. It’s okay. She wouldn’t have liked it out here. She was a city girl, you know? She hated the idea of camping or anything like that. All of this space would have just weirded her out.”
* * *
—
AS THEY NEARED the highway exit to Winchester and sizzled across the bridge over the Twelve Sleep River, Justin said, “I’d really like to learn how to fly-fish one of these days because it seems like such a cool thing to do.”
“He’s watched A River Runs Through It a thousand times,” Lucy said, laughing.
“Not that many,” Justin said. “Maybe just a hundred.”
“I’d be happy to teach you,” Joe offered, surprising even himself. “Don’t worry—you won’t have to cast like they do in the movie to catch fish. Presenting the right fly to a fish in the right circumstances is more important than making forty-yard casts. It’s more about learning what bugs are hatching and about what trout like to eat.”
Justin said he’d been watching videos on YouTube about casting and tying flies. He asked Joe about streamers, nymphs, and effective dry flies.
While he answered, Joe could sense Lucy’s unease with the topic. While she no doubt wanted her parents to like Justin or at least not be hostile toward him, it was obvious to Joe that Lucy wasn’t sure she wanted her dad and her boyfriend to become fishing buddies, either.
